Twitter users who used the word “Memphis” found themselves temporarily locked out of their accounts at the weekend because of a bizarre bug.

Several users shared screenshots showing messages from Twitter saying their account was being limited for violating the platform’s rules after they had tweeted a message which included the word “Memphis.”

Twitter late Sunday acknowledged the error and said it had been fixed.
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Reports of the bug emerged after some soccer fans noticed that posts mentioning Olympique Lyonnais player Memphis Depay were being blocked.

The French soccer club tweeted a picture of their Dutch forward with the message: “Hey, @Twitter — can we talk about him yet?”

Others joined in with jokes about the apparent taboo.

“When bots flood our comments with ‘say the m word’,” NBA team the Memphis Grizzlies tweeted with a video of a player blocking a shot.

Some users expressed mock concern about the taboo covering the Tennessee home of rock’n’roll where Elvis Presley grew up.
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Others referenced the Monty Python comedy “Life of Brian,” with lawyer George Conway, a vocal Donald Trump critic, linking to the scene where a man is about to be stoned for saying the word “Jehovah.”

“A number of accounts that Tweeted the word ‘Memphis’ were temporarily limited due to a bug,” Twitter Support said on Sunday.

“It’s been fixed and the accounts have now been restored. We’re sorry this happened.”

Some users noted that Twitter was able to ban a specific term, albeit inadvertently, and called for it to better address abuse on the platform.

“Hello Twitter, Glad you got that fixed. Now ban the nazis, please,” one user tweeted.

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